Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader wishes you all a very happy day. A very happy opening day for baseball in fact. Your Maximum Leader knows that the Yanks and Sawx played last night so one could argue that opening day is at least already underway. Your Maximum Leader believes this is really opening day. Teams going all over the country in glorious day games. Every team is excited, every fan is filled with anticipation and for a short while every prediction is the right one.

Your Maximum Leader will not be able to head out to Nationals Park to catch his beloved Nationals take on the Phillies this afternoon. President Obama will be throwing out that first pitch to much fanfare. Your Maximum Leader read a tweet (which was later sent to him in an email from a friend) that wondered how many innings the Nats were going to get out of Obama before they had to go to the bullpen.

Heh. That’s funny…

Your Maximum Leader figures that the President could go on star power alone for 1 inning, then would have to rely on the Secret Service to disrupt batter for another 2 innings… So Obama could go for three before the Nats hit the pen.

Your Maximum Leader has been mumm on making predictions for the Nats this pre-season. This has been because he’s been following the Capitals very closely and because he can’t tell what type of team the Nats will be this year. They should improve noticeably. But from where they were, they don’t have anywhere to go but up. They should be able to win at least 70 games. Your Maximum Leader hopes that they could win near 80 games. But they will end up at the bottom of the NL East regardless. Your Maximum Leader hopes the Nats can be spoilers for other NL East teams (like the Phillies, Braves, and Mets) who all seek playoff berths.

Happy baseball America! Enjoy another great summer at the ballpark.

Go Nats!

Carry on.